


You're Gonna Have a Bad Time

by BoPeepWithNoSheep



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Siblings, Self-Insert, Terminal Illnesses, Unhealthy Relationships, additional characters to be added by chapter, each chapter will have tags added, self insert anthology, self insert ripples, that's not really self insert my so much as the genre, the shinobi world is terrible and you don't want to be reborn there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 03:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoPeepWithNoSheep/pseuds/BoPeepWithNoSheep
Summary: An anthology series of Naruto si's who were not so lucky as others.





	You're Gonna Have a Bad Time

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! You may have noticed I've been a rather busy bee as of late with a lot of series and you would be right. HOWEVER, this is one I have been sitting on for a long time, in fact, this series is where SiL almost ended up being before I expanded on it heavily. Every chapter will be a different SI, whether they're familiar with the Naruto world varies they are not me nor are they all the same soul, and I'll explore different scenarios that I've considered writing but never gotten around to working into a full fic.

It took time to realize who my brother was.

He didn’t really look all that different as a child compared to an adult, we both had a distinct family look for all that our family was so small and shattered, but it wasn’t something I considered. I spent so much time inside, sick with the same illness that had taken our parents. He brought me anything I needed, within reason, like toys, books, clothes, food. I only went outside supervised because it was too dangerous to my health; I was a fragile thing. Nii-san called me thin-skinned and weak-lunged, but I remembered days of running on long legs and  _ winning _ . 

One day I snuck out, trying to run as far as my pudgy toddler feet could carry me only to end up sprawled on the ground, hacking blood with a heavy invisible weight constricting my chest like a snake. Nii-san found me, just as terrified as I was and releasing heaving sobs in unison as he sprinted towards the hospital holding me close and whispering

_ “Not again, not again, don’t take her too.” _

I spent weeks in the hospital and when I was released there were no more outside trips--But it was alright, Nii-san doted on me enough for a village and a half. It was lonely sometimes, but he did everything by my side so it wasn’t so bad. Sitting with Nii-san as he leafed through what seemed like hundreds of books. Soon, nothing outside mattered. Only Nii-san and his books were important.

Mathematics, history, science, and  _ magic _ \--though he laughed when I called it that for the first time.  _ Jutsu _ , he softly corrected and gently guided my hands through string games and promised he would show me how to do magic like him one day. It made me happy because my brother was a genius. I wasn’t very smart, I’d never been very smart then, or Before, but he was patient. It was strange, acclimating to childhood again but Nii-san was  _ so _ smart, he never thought I was strange or odd for things I ‘picked up’ faster than others because he did it too without having the benefit of a Before to look back on.

It made Nii-san  _ amazing _ .

Things changed when Nii-san started attending school. I couldn’t be left alone, but I was too young (and too sick) to go with him. For the first time, I met other people besides Nii-san, though he was loathed to leave me with anyone. If he could have carried me to the academy with him he would have, and it would have been nice. I liked being carried, tangling my small fingers in his long hair and resting my head on his chest to listen to the steady beat of his heart beneath cool skin. He did something similar sometimes when I sat in his lap as he studied, one hand scratching down answers in smooth script while the over rested on my chin, so he could feel me breathing and know immediately if I began to wheeze or cough.

I spent my time with friends of our parents, with old ladies covered in scars who mooned over my smooth skin and long hair. I would be so pretty when I grew older, they said, I just needed a little more sun and a little more weight on my bones. It was bizarre, I supposed I was pretty but in the way that most young children were. Nii-san was  _ beautiful _ and I did look like him so they must have been right in a roundabout way.

I would never be smart or capable as Nii-san, no one could be. My delicate limbs would never move so smoothly as his, like a fish through water, but I could be like him in small ways. I already wore most of his hand-me-downs. We didn’t have the money for new clothes and with a bit of hemming they looked just as pretty on a little girl as when Nii-san wore them, but Nii-san looked pretty in  _ everything _ .

Things slowly ticked together when Nii-san graduated. I cheered happily along with everyone else and my chest puffed with pride even as things I had desperately blocked slotted neatly into place. I wasn’t in denial--Nii-san was  _ Nii-san _ not some  _ villain _ . That fact was ripped away from me in spite of the wild pride at him being placed on a team as the Hokage’s pupil with Tsunade and Jiraiya.

But Nii-san never had a sister that I could remember--so that meant he was  _ different _ . He loved me, I could see it in everything he did. He held me when I was sick, soothed my pain with medicines grown in our late mother’s garden and mixed by hand. He was different from the person I remembered who wore Nii-san’s skin. That was all the Before was, a boogie monster of what he would be without me, without something, anything, left in his life to cling to. Nii-san was strong and beautiful and he  _ loved me _ .

His teammates were so unsure of what to make of me. Tsunade was kind, if a bit frightening. Jiraiya was just baffling. That he thought he was any sort of rival for Nii-san was  _ galling _ . I told him as much when Nii-san first introduced me to his team, small eyes narrowed and tiny fists squared on my hips. His blustering response was nearly as satisfying at Tsunade’s bright laughter. I worried Nii-san would grow distant with his new team, but, if anything, the fact that he was occasionally gone from the village only made him keep me closer when he was nearby. 

I sat in on many training sessions. Jiraiya complained about it, but Hiruzen-san would shush him with an admonishment about the importance of family. He looked at me sadly sometimes, when he thought I wasn’t looking--Or rather when he thought Nii-san wasn’t looking. He was more sensitive than I was about the pitying looks I was given by others. Protective, he lashed out with a spiteful tongue towards anyone besides a medic that questioned my health. 

I watched him make another genin cry once because the boy had said I looked weak clinging to Nii-san’s hand. I didn’t feel very sorry for him when Nii-san pressed his face into the dirt and demanded an apology with a voice that sounded almost demure.

I liked Tsunade best because she had a brother who was my age and didn’t mind spending time with me, even though I couldn’t play like the other children. Nawaki was sweet and kind and once he held my hand when I wheezed for an hour and kept it secret from Nii-san. He’d looked so worried but I made him pinky promise. Nii-san wouldn’t let me outside if he knew I’d had an attack, and I liked spending time with my new friend. He still did his best to spend some amount of time with me, even when he started the academy and I became a mender’s apprentice. I learned how to reforge shattered kunai while Nawaki learned to throw them.

The second war came to the village swiftly; I heard it coming just as soon as any shinobi. Old women gossiped like hens, but as a civilian, there was little I could do. Nii-san spent an entire week covering the house in seals and traps, covering my clothes with seals, inking three onto my back. Two of them were remote summoning, that if I were in any danger that I could call one of his smaller snakes to my side for protection. The third he was cagier about--a medical seal, in case I had an attack when he wasn’t here to soothe it. I nodded at the explanation. I always trusted Nii-san, he was surely one of the strongest shinobi in the village, would become one of the strongest in the world, but he would never hurt me.

Nii-san would win the second war, with Jiraiya and Tsunade. He would return and tell me stories of his battles, and I would give him a new kimono because he had just had his last growth spurt and grown out of his old one. With the war going on it wasn’t so bad, he could wear his uniforms, but I knew Nii-san could be vain. He would appreciate my gift, a beautiful pale lavender with deep violet snakes interlocked into knots.

I was working on it when the attack started, I hoped I didn’t get any blood on it as I gasped for breath. People scrambled around me, weathered hands reaching for my chest, tearing away my own yukata. I struggled out a whimper, I didn’t want them to tear Nii-san’s clothes. I had so few of them left, he had started buying me my own just before he’d left.

Death pulled at my chest as the world went dark and my ears rang until they didn't. Dying twice was not nearly so bad as dying the first time, once the pain stopped. I could feel myself drifting lazily through a dark tide, feelings dulled where I should have been panicking. Nii-san would be so cross. He’d left to fight and protect me, but my weak body had betrayed us.

Nii-san would  _ cry _ again--I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t, I simply floated adrift in a sea of darkness I could barely comprehend, but the calm sensation of floating from so long ago greeted me like an old friend. It could have been hours or minutes that I lingered in that place. I couldn’t remember if it had felt long or short the last time, only felt the familiarity until the easy flow of energy suddenly moved from the trickle of a stream to a churning whirlpool.

_ Something _ pulled at my navel, a violent yank so unlike the gradual press my first rebirth had been. I spasmed, dragged down and down into fetid water. When I slowly blinked to consciousness the lights were dimmed, not like the bright sterile hospital I remembered. The scent of loam was thick in the air, felt thick in my throat as I gagged on nothing.

  
My eyes drifted up until they came to rest upon a figure--familiar, unkempt, and wild-eyed as I've never seen him--who stood above me. Behind him lay a series of machines glowing faintly green in the torchlight. Tables littered the open space. Small  _ bodies _ littered the tables, each of them covered head to toe in sprawling familiar ink seals. All at once I felt sick, my hands scrambled, small but fully developed--the hands of a  _ child _ not an infant--and I clawed at the wooden coffin around me.   
  
“Nii-san,” I gasped, voice hoarse from disuse and  _ death _ , “What the  _ fuck _ have you done?”

**Author's Note:**

> On my list at the moment are a sibling for Karin, a twin for Gaara, an unfortunate iwa nin, Yagura’s sibling, and a daughter of the fire daimyo arranged to marry madara. Once I’ve managed to go through my first ‘batch’ of sorts I’ll see about revisiting previous one at both specific requests or just as they interest me.


End file.
